


red wolf, white wolf

by WingedQuill



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Getting Together, Hair Loss, Hurt/Comfort, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Sickfic, Witcher Trials, Young Love, Young Witchers (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28500204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedQuill/pseuds/WingedQuill
Summary: Years from now, Geralt will be known as the White Wolf. All the ballads will have three basic facts:1) He's a witcher from the School of the Wolf2) He's noble, and kind, and the bravest man most people will ever meet3) He has white hairThis last fact is...not entirely accurate.(Or: Eskel loves Geralt so goddamn much, and it breaks his heart when the experimental trials take his hair)
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 13
Kudos: 149





	red wolf, white wolf

**Author's Note:**

> This was my Witcher Secret Santa gift for @laurelnose on tumblr! His baby witcher Geralt/Eskel art was one of the first things I saw for this ship, and it's honestly what got me shipping them in the first place, so it seemed only right that I write a baby, troublemaker Gereskel fic for him. Hope you enjoy it!

Eskel wakes feeling cold. Cold, and disoriented, and with the sinking fear that  _ something is wrong.  _ It only takes a second to realize why. The other side of the thin cot is empty, the familiar lump of blankets and curly red hair missing. Geralt’s gone.

He sits bolt upright, the blankets tangling around his legs, his chest heaving. Even after five years of training, Geralt is still distinctly  _ not  _ a morning person. He almost  _ never  _ wakes up before Eskel, not unless he’s sick.

Eskel scrambles out of bed. They aren’t supposed to  _ get _ sick anymore. The trials assured that, Vesemir had said. Witchers don’t die of consumption, or fever, or plague. That knowledge—that they would be  _ safe  _ from that, that he’d never feel Geralt burning and shivering next to him again—was the only part of the trials Eskel had looked forward to.

His eyes skim around the room—the chamberpots, the windows, the bed that is nominally Geralt’s. Not a shadow out of place. His ears join in the search. Wind and snores and sleep-slowed heartbeats. But not Geralt’s heartbeat, not Geralt’s breath. He’s not here.

Eskel staggers out of the room with distinctly unwitcherlike grace, blowing his pupils wide to take in as much of the dim moonlight as he can.  _ Maybe it’s nothing,  _ he tells himself.  _ Maybe he just couldn’t sleep. Maybe he had a bad dream. _

If that’s the case, he’s definitely down at the stables. That’s always where he goes when his feelings get too big for words, when even Eskel’s hugs aren’t enough. Horses have always calmed him in a way that people just can’t manage.

He creeps down the hallway, keeping every footstep as light as a cat’s. He’s not sure if they’ll be punished for being out of bed, now that they’re real witchers, but he doesn’t want to find out. 

***

Geralt’s not in the stables.

***

Or the baths.

***

Or the kitchens.

***

And then, while he’s standing in the Great Hall, a panic that he hasn’t felt since his first day at Kaer Morhen  _ drowning  _ him, he hears a scream.

It’s coming from the basement rooms. The rooms where they hold the trials. And it’s joined by another, then another and another until the sound seems to shake the castle to its foundation.

He runs for the stairs but the door is bolted shut, fastened with a lock that not even a full-grown witcher could break. Eskel hurls his shoulder at the door anyway. Screams and sobs and pounds at the door with his fists.

“Let  _ go of him!”  _ he screams, and gods, this is all his worst nightmares coming home to roost. They’re doing something to Geralt in there, and he can’t help, he can’t fight, he can’t  _ stop this.  _ “Let go of him, let go of him, stop,  _ stop, fucking  _ **_stop it!”_ **

He screams until his throat gives out but the door doesn’t open.

***

When it’s all over and Geralt is sequestered in the hospital ward with the six other boys chosen for these—experimental trials,  _ gods,  _ they put them through the trials again, they put  _ Geralt  _ through the  _ fucking trials, again— _ Eskel marches into the room and refuses to leave.

“You’ll have to kill me,” he snarls, when Vesemir—fucking  _ Vesemir,  _ Geralt’s  _ godsdamn father,  _ who  _ let this  _ happen to him—tries to make him. “You’ll have to kill me to keep me away from him for another second.”

He stays.

They bring in an extra cot for him. He ignores it. Waits until the healers have left for their own beds and curls up next to Geralt.

“You stay with me,” he whispers, laying a hand over Geralt’s heart, gentle,  _ so  _ gentle, like he’s trying not to crush a butterfly’s wing. “Stay.”

All witchers have slow heartbeats. But Geralt’s seems so much slower than his own.

Eskel falls asleep counting the beats.

***

Vesemir looks at the unrumpled sheets of the cot, raises an eyebrow, and tells Eskel that his bed making skills have improved overnight.

Eskel ignores him. Ignores everyone and everything but the cold hand in his, the labored breaths that just keep coming, one after the other. Nothing else in the world is as important as this.

A sigh. A hesitant hand on his shoulder. A blanket draped over him. A cup of tea growing cold on the bedside table. Vesemir tries to apologize in a thousand different ways, and Eskel doesn’t forgive him.

He will, someday. Maybe. If Geralt does.

If Geralt  _ can. _

***

The days pass like that, a blur of exhaustion and nausea and hope—stubborn, furious hope that seems intent to tear Eskel’s heart to shreds. One by one, the other six boys stop breathing, their heartbeats faltering to a stop. One by one, they are carried away by Vesemir, shrouded and still.

One by one, Geralt outlives them.

***

Eskel reaches out to run his fingers through Geralt’s hair. It’s a familiar gesture, a familiar comfort. Geralt always seemed— _ seems _ —to prefer it to words. Eskel’s done it a hundred times since Geralt was placed in this cot, and he’s not sure if he’s comforting himself or Geralt with the familiarity of it.

But that familiarity is shattered in an instant. Because when he pulls his hand back, a clump of red curls comes away in his fingers. 

He stares at it for a moment, unable to comprehend what he’s looking at. Because a few strands is one thing but this—this isn’t—

_ “Vesemir!”  _

***

“It doesn’t mean he’s dying.”

Eskel doesn’t look away from the small pile of red on the floor. It seems so dull, among the dust and bloodstains. Just another casualty.

“It could just be a side-effect,” Vesemir continues, resting a hand on Eskel’s shoulder. “And we should thank the gods if it’s the only one.”

“We should thank the gods if he loses his hair?” Eskel says, and he can’t disguise the bitterness in his voice. He shrugs Vesemir’s hand away, curling closer to Geralt. Vesemir makes a soft, hurt noise, like Eskel just punched him.

_He has_ _no right,_ Eskel thinks, threading his fingers through Geralt’s.

“It’s only hair, Eskel,” Vesemir whispers. “It’s a small price—”

“It was the only part of his mother he had left,” Eskel snaps. “You already took her eyes.”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. Geralt didn’t tell him anything about his mother until the two of them had known each other for  _ years,  _ and Eskel doesn’t think he ever told anyone else how much losing her eyes hurt him.

“I—”

_ Just say you’re sorry,  _ Eskel thinks furiously.  _ Just say you didn’t want to hurt him, just say it wasn’t worth it, just say  _ **_something._ **

“I’ll get a razor,” Vesemir says at last. “Don’t want it to—to fall out in clumps, I’ll—”

A swallow, and then footsteps, practically running away from them. Eskel closes his eyes, and tells himself that the burning in them is exhaustion, not tears.

***

Vesemir holds Geralt’s head so  _ gently  _ as he drags the razor over it, rubbing in an oil that he says will ease any irritation that the shave might cause.

“You’ll need to use it when your beard grows in,” he tells Eskel, his voice strained. Eskel nods mutely, watching as the red curls cascade to the ground. Perhaps his hair had tricked the mutagens, he thinks, even though he knows it’s foolish. Perhaps they had mistaken it for his blood. 

“All done,” Vesemir whispers after what feels like hours. He sets the razor aside and cradles Geralt’s limp body in his arms, lifting him from the bed.

“Turn down the sheets,” he says, jerking his head at the unused cot. “Let’s get him somewhere not covered with hair. Don’t want him to wake up all itchy.”

Eskel rushes to do as he’s told, and Vesemir settles Geralt down, arranging his limbs with brow-furrowing precision. He doesn’t seem to want to let go of him, fussing with the blankets and pillows for far longer than necessary.

“I’d change the sheets on his old cot for you,” he says at last, stepping back. “But something tells me you won’t need them.”

“I won’t,” Eskel whispers. He can’t take his eyes off Geralt. He looks so...so  _ strange  _ without his hair. So small. So  _ fragile,  _ even though he’s the strongest person Eskel’s ever known.

“Get some rest,” Vesemir says. “It’ll—he’ll be fine _ ,  _ Eskel.”

“Are you sure?” 

He hates how much like a child he sounds, just then. Like the shivering six-year-old he was when he was first brought here.

“Positive.”

***

There’s a snuffling sound next to him. He doesn’t fully register it at first, caught up in a twisting dream of needles and blood. But it’s enough to drag him from sleep to hazy wakefulness. 

Geralt is twisting around in his arms. His breaths are coming quick and sharp, wheezing on the way out. And his eyes are open. Wild and clouded with confusion, but—but they’re  _ open.  _ He’s  _ awake. _

“Le’go,” he mumbles, and Eskel almost weeps at the sound of his voice, weak and scratchy though it is. “Le’go me.”

“It’s just me,” Eskel says, though he untangles himself from Geralt. He can’t imagine how disoriented he must be. 

“‘Skel?” 

Geralt goes still, slumping into the mattress. 

“Yeah,” Eskel says. He brings up a trembling hand and ghosts his fingers over the little freckles on Geralt’s cheekbones. “Yeah, it’s— _ fuck,  _ Wolf, it’s good to hear your voice.”

He expects Geralt to start twisting around again. To reach up and touch his bald head, to demand why he’s here, why this is happening to him. But he just snuggles back into Eskel, hiding his face in Eskel’s chest.

“Knew you’d come,” he slurs, his words almost unintelligible with sleep. “S’why I love you.”

And then he promptly falls back asleep, leaving Eskel stunned, staring wide-eyed into the dark.

_ Love you. _

_ Love. You. _

_ It’s why I love you. _

He laughs. Short and quiet, just for himself. Something comes free of him, lifting off his shoulders, leaving him giddy and light, and the hope doesn’t feel like a traitor anymore.

For the first time, he thinks  _ Geralt will live,  _ and feels no sinking dread that he’s wrong.

“You can’t just drop something like that and go back to sleep,” he chides Geralt. “The hell am I supposed to do now?”

Geralt snores in response.

“Love you too, for the record,” Eskel murmurs. He presses his forehead against Geralt’s and closes his eyes. “Snores and all.”

***

The next morning is worse. Geralt wakes again, after Eskel, this time considerably more lucid. And the first thing he sees is the red hair strewn across the ground. 

“Geralt—” Eskel tries, but he’s already bringing up a hand to touch his head, face contorting in pain at the motion. Halfway there, his arm collapses back to the bed, his muscles shaking.

“What—” Geralt croaks. “Did it—why—?”

Eskel waits patiently. He knows Geralt hates it when people talk over him, especially when he’s trying to gather his words like this. He won’t be another cause of pain, not now. Not ever, if he can help it, but especially not now.

“What happened to my hair?” Geralt says at last. Eskel swallows. Squeezes his hand.

“The new trials they put you through,” he says. “I—do you remember—?”

Geralt nods, his eyes wide and haunted looking, like there’s a ghost trapped inside them. Eskel can’t even imagine. The first trials had been bad enough, burning so hot through Eskel’s blood that he thought his skin would melt clean off his bones. And Geralt had been through that twice, and the second time had been even  _ worse,  _ and—

“Vesemir said that it was a side effect,” Eskel says, locking away that horror for later. “It was falling out of your head, Ger. He had to shave the rest of it off.”

“Will it—will it grow back?”

There’s the traitorous kind of hope in his voice, hesitant and barely there, just waiting on Eskel to step on it.

“I don’t know,” Eskel says truthfully. Geralt sobs at that, biting his lip hard. Eskel thumbs the tears away, but more quickly fill the empty space.

“I want it back,” Geralt says, his shoulders shaking. “I don’t—I want  _ her back,  _ Eskel.”

“I know you do,” Eskel says, as the tears come harder and louder, as the shakes grow to cover Geralt’s entire body. He doesn’t know what else he  _ can  _ say, he doesn’t know how to  _ fix this. _

He’s never felt more helpless in his life.

***

In time, Geralt grows stronger. In time, he can sit up, and then he can feed himself, and then he can get out of bed. In time, he walks, first clinging to Eskel, and then on his own, each step more confident. In time, he can even begin training again.

In time, he becomes the best of all of them, the extra mutagens taking hold of his muscles and shaping him into the strongest witcher the world has ever seen. 

But in all that time, the weeks and months and  _ seasons  _ of time, not a single strand of hair grows back. 

Every so often, Eskel catches him staring in the mirror, fingers searching his scalp for the smallest trace of fuzz. The hope still burning in his chest, still consuming him. Still convincing him he might get his mother back.

***

“It’s never gonna grow back, is it?” Geralt whispers one night, about a year after his second round of trials. He and Eskel are sequestered away in the messenger pigeon tower, a stolen bottle of White Gull hanging loosely from Geralt’s fingers. Eskel snatches it away and takes a swig, hoping that it can burn away the lump of useless fury in his chest. It doesn’t.

“I don’t think so,” he says. 

“You know the worst thing?” Geralt says. He’s staring at one of the pigeons very intently, like he’ll break if he looks at Eskel. “All this strength, all this endurance, everything these extra mutagens gave me? I’d give it up in a heartbeat if it would give me my  _ fucking  _ hair back.”

Eskel reaches out, wraps an arm around Geralt’s waist. Geralt leans against him, resting his head on Eskel’s shoulder. They haven’t spoken of their love since Geralt’s half-dead, half-asleep confession. Eskel didn’t want to, not while Geralt was recovering. But he can feel it between them, around them, warm and familiar as an old blanket. Easy, and safe, and  _ theirs. _

It’s always been theirs, always rested over them, even before any words were spoken.

“Is that wrong of me?” Geralt asks. “To give up something that—it might save  _ lives  _ someday, but I’d still throw it away without another thought.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Eskel whispers. He thumbs over the back of Geralt’s hand. 

“It feels—it’s  _ stupid.  _ It’s just  _ hair.”  _

“It’s not. It’s part of you. Hell, it’s part of anyone. You don’t see any of those crotchety old bastards giving up  _ their  _ hair, do you?”

Geralt laughs wetly.

“Gods, that’d be a sight. Could you imagine Vesemir bald?”

And just like that, surrounded by the smell of pigeon shit, with White Gull burning in his stomach and Geralt not-quite-crying on his shoulder, Eskel gets an idea.

***

See, Eskel’s mama might have abandoned him when he was six. But before that, she put him to work. And though it’s been some eight years since he last stepped foot in her workshop, he still has those skills buried in his fingers, lurking in his brain.

And his mama was a wigmaker.

***

He waits for the instructors to feel particularly rowdy, particularly revelrous. It doesn’t take long. Not four days after he formulates his plan, he hears drinking songs drifting up from the Great Hall. He smiles, tucks Geralt’s head under his chin, and  _ waits. _

Eventually the keep grows quiet. Eskel untangles himself from Geralt’s clinging limbs, snatches his dagger off of his bedside table, and slips into the hallway. Normally, sneaking up on a sleeping witcher with a knife would be the worst plan in the world, but normally, witchers don’t let their guards down and chug a dozen pints of ale. That’s a level of stupidity reserved only for Kaer Morhen, as the instructors have told them many times.

So it’s not difficult for him to tiptoe into the Great Hall and feast his eyes on a plethora of sprawled out, snoring, drunk-as-all-hells witchers. They’re draped over benches and tables, curled up on furs, and about half a dozen of them have formed a giant pile in front of the fire.

Fortunately, his target is not among them.

He knows he could take from any of the instructors, knows that all of them had a hand in the extra trials. And maybe Geralt would prefer brown hair, or blonde, or black. Something  _ younger,  _ at least, since none of the instructors are redheads. But he still hasn’t forgiven Vesemir. Geralt has, and Eskel doesn’t think he’ll ever understand why. But Eskel has not.

And well. Geralt sees Vesemir as a father, Eskel knows that.  _ Vesemir  _ knows that. And since he can’t have the hair of one parent, Eskel will give him the hair of the other.

Also, Vesemir’s probably the instructor that’s the least likely to beat him for this. 

Fortunately, Vesemir is lying facedown on the ground, his head pillowed on his arm. At least Eskel won’t have to turn his head this way and that. He kneels down behind him and slowly,  _ very _ slowly, gathers his hair into a ponytail. And then, with a single quick motion, he shears it off at the base of his neck.

There is a very brief moment when all he can think is,  _ oh gods, what have I done?  _ The haircut looks  _ awful,  _ all scraggly and crooked, and the ponytail in Eskel’s hand must be years of growth. Vesemir will  _ kill  _ him.

And then he thinks of Geralt’s face when he realized his hair was gone forever.

After that, it isn’t so hard to get to his feet, turn around, and stroll out of the Great Hall with his prize.

***

He doesn’t have time. The sun is rising and he’s only covered about a quarter of the cap with hair,  _ fuck,  _ he forgot how  _ long _ this takes—

The door to the pigeon tower slams open. Eskel shrinks into the tiny alcove he’d set up for himself and his sewing supplies. The scent and heartbeat are familiar, the breaths sharp and angry.  _ Vesemir.  _

“I know you’re here, Eskel,” he says, his voice gruff. His footsteps draw closer. “I’ll let you and Geralt’s excursions slide, but I’m not going to let you hide in here after you’ve—”

He rounds the corner and his shadow falls over the Eskel’s alcove. Eskel shrinks back even further, his excuses curling up and dying on his tongue.  _ This is it. This is how I die. _

But Vesemir’s eyes quickly drop from Eskel’s wide eyes to the partially-finished wig in his hands.

“Oh,” he breathes. He sinks to the floor. “Is that—is that for Geralt?”

“Yeah,” Eskel says. He pulls another bit of hair through the cap and ties it in place. “I—I wanted—he’s so upset, and I wanted—”

Vesemir swallows.

“You could have asked,” he says.

“Could I?” Eskel snaps. “Did you ask Geralt whether or not he wanted to do the second round of trials?”

Vesemir wraps his arms around himself.

“It wasn’t my decision,” he says, and his voice is a little bit broken. “It was a few mages, two of the doctors. And any objections the rest of us had were just—”

He waves his hand.

“But you were  _ there,”  _ Eskel says. “You were—you were  _ there,  _ he was screaming, and you were—”

Vesemir buries his head in his hands.

“I was holding his hand,” he whispers. “I was trying—I didn’t want him to be alone. I didn’t want  _ any  _ of them to be alone.”

The last of the words come out as a sob. Eskel freezes, his hands clenching the wig so tightly he’s scared he might tear it. He’s never heard Vesemir cry before.

“I’m sorry,” Eskel says. His stomach feels like an empty pit. He’d never—all these months, he’d never considered that Vesemir might have been against it. “I—I didn’t know—”

“I didn’t tell you,” Vesemir laughs weakly. “I—you were angry at me, and you were right to be. I should’ve fought harder.”

Before Eskel can say anything to that, Vesemir wipes his eyes off with his sleeve and considers the wig with a frown.

“You’ll need more than my hair to do that,” he says, and Eskel gets the feeling he won’t acknowledge his tears till the day he dies. “Five, maybe six people?”

Eskel stares down at the wig. He’s right. He won’t have  _ nearly  _ enough, it’ll be all patchy and uneven, and Geralt will never want to wear—

“Don’t panic,” Vesemir says, reaching forward and resting a hand on Eskel’s shoulder. This time, Eskel doesn’t flinch away. “I think you’ll find plenty of volunteers.”

***

The potions instructor keeps Geralt busy for the next few days, so that he won’t question why six white-haired people have gotten haircuts, or why Eskel is spending all of his free time in the sewing room. 

By the time the wig is done, Eskel’s fingers are sore and he doesn’t want to tie another knot ever again. But he has something that might make Geralt’s life just a little bit easier to shoulder, and really, isn’t that worth it?

The six donors cluster into the sewing room, Vesemir at the very front.

“Well, it won’t win any awards,” Eskel says, holding up the wig to show them. “But I think it’ll work.”

“He’ll love it,” Vesemir says.

“He’d  _ better,”  _ grouses one of the other donors, an elderly human that’s been Kaer Morhen’s lead cook for as long as Eskel can remember. “My hair won’t get that long again till my death, and that’s a fact.”

The smile on her face betrays her words. They’re all smiling. Geralt is—he’s the jewel of the keep, bright and shining in a way that Eskel will never be. They all love him. Everyone he meets loves him.

None quite like Eskel, though. He’s certain of that.

***

When the potions instructor leads Geralt into the room, the first expression on his face is confusion. But that quickly shatters as he realizes what’s happening, as Eskel holds up the wig to show him.

“You  _ didn’t,”  _ he breathes, his eyes darting from donor to donor, settling on Vesemir. “You—you all—you all did this for me?”

“It was Eskel’s idea,” Vesemir says. “And I’m sure he’ll tell you all about how he persuaded us.”

“Later,” Eskel snorts. He steps closer to Geralt, who is covering his mouth with his hands, eyes wide and watering. “Try it on, first. See if you like it?”

“I love it,” Geralt chokes.

“See how it looks on you before you say that.”

He lifts the wig over Geralt’s head, tugging the cap into place and smoothing down the hair. He looks—he looks  _ beautiful.  _ Like a hero out of a strange folk song, all sunlight eyes and moonlight hair.

Shit, how long has he been staring at him?

“Well, uh,” Eskel says, clearing his throat. “Do you want to look in the mir— _ mmph!” _

His question is cut off as Geralt surges forward and kisses him, clutching at Eskel’s shirt. It’s an awkward kiss, hesitant and unpracticed, but Eskel falls into it easy as breathing, bringing up a hand to tangle in Geralt’s new hair.

Behind them, the cook whoops in delight. Vesemir sighs.

“Come on, then,” he says, and his voice has so much warmth in it. “Let’s give them their space.”

The door clicks shut and Geralt pulls back, his eyes sparkling in delight.

“Gods, I love it. I love  _ you _ ,” he says, and he’s not dying, he’s not exhausted, he’s not as cold a corpse. He’s warm and alive and shining like starlight in Eskel’s arms.

“I love you too,” Eskel breathes over Geralt’s lips. And it’s the second time he’s said those words, and the first time he’s said them while Geralt is conscious. 

But it feels like the thousandth.


End file.
